Setbacks for Chang in Johannesburg court – AIM report

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Setbacks for Chang in Johannesburg court – AIM report

7:45 CAT | 26 Mar 2019

Photo: O País

The Kempton Park Magistrates’ Court in Johannesburg on Monday rejected attempts to drag South African President Cyril Ramaphosa into the discussion as to whether former Mozambican Finance Minister Manuel Chang should be extradited to the United States or to Mozambique.

The US justice department is charging Chang with conspiracy to commit money laundering, wire fraud and securities fraud. The charges arise from Chang’s role in Mozambique’s largest ever financial scandal: he signed the illicit guarantees that allowed the fraudulent companies Proindicus, Ematum (Mozambique Tuna Company) and MAM (Mozambique Asset Management) to borrow over two billion dollars from the banks Credit Suisse and VTB of Russia

Last week Chang’s legal team claimed that it should be an executive authority, in this case President Ramaphosa, who ought to decide which of the two extradition requests the court hears first.

According to the report from Kempton Park in Tuesday’s online edition of the independent daily “O Pais”, the judge, William Schutte, threw the request out. There could be no appeal to Ramaphosa, since the President had nothing to do with the case.

The Justice Minister could be involved, but at a later stage, not while court proceedings are still under way. Schutte said that, if the executive authorities were to take a decision before the court did, that would violate the extradition procedures. He called for respect for the separation of powers.

“The procedures should be followed as laid down by the law”, Schutte insisted. “The court should take its decision with regard to the two requests, and only then will the case be taken to the authorities of the Justice Ministry”.

He also thought that the defence argument that the Mozambican request should be considered first because Chang would prefer to be extradited to Mozambique made no sense. It was the American request (with an indictment of 49 pages) that had arrived first.

The defence then struck out on a completely different line of reasoning, claiming that Chang was not accused of money laundering, merely of conspiracy to commit money laundering.

“If the crime of conspiracy does not incur a heavy penalty in South Africa, then we cannot extradite someone for a crime in which he did not participate actively”, claimed lawyer Willie Vermeulen. “If the crime was committed abroad, that means the accused cannot be tried by South African law. And if he cannot be penalised by our law, that means he cannot be extradited”.

But the prosecutor, JJ du Toit, dealt with this speedily, simply by quoting from the extradition treaty between the United States and

South Africa, which makes it clear that conspiracy is indeed a crime for which a suspect may be extradited.

The court has set 8 April as the date for its decision on the request to extradite Chang to the US.

Source: AIM